5 Online Marketing Skills Learned While Blogging

Although a lot of bloggers may not consider themselves Internet marketers, they have likely developed many valuable online marketing skills. How? Through simply promoting their own blog and latest posts. I know that many of my online marketing skills can be directly attributed to the trial and error process of things I did to get traffic and reader engagement to my own blog posts and even articles.

Online Marketing and Blogging

Here are some online marketing techniques that many bloggers do in their day to day blogging activities that can be easily applied to other projects, websites, or even added to your resume.

1) Keyword Research

Whenever you were first thinking about your blog’s domain name, and whenever you are doing a little research into popular topics that people are interested in about your niche, then you are on the verge of (or fully emerged) into keyword research.

2) On-Page Optimization

Now then, if you take your keyword research, whether in-depth and complex or simple and sweet, and be sure to apply those keywords in your title and meta description using plugins like All in One SEO or Arkayne, or SEO optimized themes like Thesis, then you are now treading into the world of on-page search optimization.

3) Link Building

Many bloggers have used some common link building techniques for their own blog, whether knowingly or not, including the following.

Directories

Bloggeries and BlogCatalog are only two of the many directories made specifically for blogs. If you have added your blog to one of these directories, then you have entered into the world of directory submissions. One key thing to keep in mind is to be sure that the directory you are submitting your site to is a good one to give it the best search performance.

Targeted Link Requests

Have you ever emailed someone and asked them to add your site to your blogroll? Then congratulations, you have participated in a targeted link request, where you find a site that is relevant to your own and ask the webmaster to add your link to it.

Reciprocal Link Exchange

Of course, if you offer to add their blog to your blogroll in your targeted link request, and you follow through with it, then you have actually done a reciprocal link exchange. Remember, these are not all evil – so long as you are not just adding anyone in a huge list and the other site is directly related to yours, it is a good exchange.

Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is probably the most popular and common task that bloggers do, whether or not it is entirely for self-promotion or because they simply enjoy reading and responding to other bloggers. But anytime you comment on a blog asking for your URL, you are building links to your site. You even get bonus points if you are commenting on blogs enabled by CommentLuv (like this one) to get links back to your articles, and KeywordLuv to get links using your blog’s best keyword anchor text, based off of your above mentioned keyword research.

4) Social Media Marketing

Do you share your latest post on Twitter, Facebook, and the other major networks? Do you bookmark your post on Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, or other bookmarking sites? Do you encourage sharing of your posts using social bookmarking icons or widgets such as Tweetmeme? Then you know the value of social media marketing – how it drives traffic to your posts, sometimes helps build links to them, and gives them the opportunity to go viral to be shared beyond your network!

5) Affiliate Marketing

This is sometimes a “dirty word” in the blogging world, but it doesn’t always have to be. If you are, say, using a premium WordPress theme and you have signed up as an affiliate to make a commission, then proceed to write about your theme or link to your affiliate link on your blog posts, sidebar, etc., then you are participating in affiliate marketing. It’s not a bad thing at all, so long as you are only promoting products that you completely believe in to make money online. Otherwise, you could lose your readers’ trust.

Your Online Marketing Skills Assessment

Looking at the things you do for promoting your own blog, what would you consider your level of online marketing experience? What other techniqes and strategies have you used to get your posts more exposure to bring in more readers?